Another World
by HilaryHilary
Summary: Late at night Elizabeth remembers and knows exactly what she regrets, and what she never could. She's sorry but as it turns out, he's fully willing to forgive. JE.


Another World

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Author's note: This is my first attempt at writing PoTC fanfic, hope you enjoy. This takes place afted Dead Man's Chest and takes place a while after it. Also it might be an M, but I think it's T. If someone strongly objects I'll move it.

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It astonished her sometimes, when she forced herself to remember that she cared. 

She called him a good man, but every time she'd herself believe it he'd disproved her belief in him. It was like he wanted to fall in her eyes.

She'd always known he was attracted to her, but it had never mattered. She was the governor's daughter, a virgin, and he was a pirate. A real, notorious pirate. She hadn't seen him in the company of a single other woman without being certain that he'd had them.

He hadn't had her, he never would, and still he tormented her.

Elizabeth rose and wrapped her blanket closer around her. They were on land, _again._ Will was sleeping somewhere nearby, the crew surrounded them. They were waiting, waiting for anything. Elizabeth in her secret heart didn't know why they bothered. Will was not the captain Jack was, never would be. Neither was Barbossa, who they'd been foolish to ever trust.

Elizabeth knew she should have learned faster to never trust a pirate. Even one of her own.

She slowly stepped in between the deeply sleeping men. She rarely even saw herself as different from them anymore. She'd shorn her hair close to her head, she was as dirty as a small child, she no longer wore her dresses.

Elizabeth walked to the beach, cursing herself for damning herself to her eternal state of torment; knowing she could have done nothing different.

She shut her eyes tightly as she dropped onto the sand, feeling the water reach her feet whenever it rose. She remembered the time, not so long ago, when Will had had to do nothing more than glance in her direction to vanquish all sorrow. She doubted Jack would be equally capable of it. She knew what she wanted Jack for, and it wasn't tender glances and innocent kisses.

Distantly she heard water splash, but she didn't react. She dreamed this dream so often, yet still she let herself believe it. She didn't let herself open her eyes and look up until she was certain it wasn't true.

"Jack?" she asked, hesitantly. It was true. It was.

"Miss Elizabeth," he said cordially. She drank in the sight of him. His hair was longer, more unkempt. He'd lost weight, but he was the same.

"You're alive. You escaped," she said in wonder.

"Of course I did." He paused, and she could just as easily have said his next words herself: "I'm Captain Jack Sparrow, love."

She rose slowly until their eyes met.

"Yes. You most certainly are," she said. She let one of her hands fall against his body.

"Where you going now? I was so hoping to join you down there," he said.

"You were, were you?"

"I do believe you're something in me debt," he said.

Elizabeth was silent for a second, staring at him. It had been months since she'd seen him, months in which she'd presumed him dead, and already they were back to their banter, now less innocent in the moonlight.

"And this is how a pirate collects his debt?" she asked coyly.

"I'd be happy to tell you all about how a pirate collects his debt, love."

For a fleeting instant, Elizabeth hoped that the night would have very little to do with the telling of anything.

In the next instant he'd kissed her, and her wish was fulfilled.

Before thought was lost to her and her passions took over, it occurred to her that the only reason he wasn't about to kill her was because he'd known that she was his for the taking and that he'd been certain that upon his return he'd receive his reward.

She was a reward to many men but very few were the same to her.

Without shame, without questions, he ripped off the shirt she was wearing as she'd so often imagined he would. She weakly protested, knowing that as a woman, a virgin, and as someone he'd betrayed she should not be accepting his advances so easily. He kissed her skin and took her wrists in his hands, ravishing her skin with his lips and his hands until she could protest no longer.

As her pulse quickened he reflected that he'd never had such a willing virgin. Many of them had been whores, practised in their profession and the unwilling he had taken, who had not had the same shallow breathing or sweaty, trembling bodies so clearly aching for him.

He paused to strip his own shirt, and their eyes met. Her own, wild and confused, his, finally accepting destiny.

"I'm to marry another man. This could never..."

He cut off her words with his lips again. So different from Will's, so much more passionate, practised, confident. Will was so certain that she was better than him, Jack so sure that they were the same.

Jack was a lover in the same way that he steered the Black Pearl, negotiated, and even spoke. Experienced, commanding, infinitely confident. He knew where to steer her and she knew exactly where to let him go.

She arched her back up toward him, feeling the grainy texture of the sand press in to her as he slowly entered her. She winced, bit her lip to ward off the pain and felt slight relief as something broke inside of her and he was able to go in more deeply. She let her eyes slide close and felt the glorious sensation of being so close to her overwhelm her.

His hands travellered along her collar bone, exploring her body.

"I..."

His words were interrupted.

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With a groan of frustration Elizabeth Turner awoke in her own bed, denied the climax of her dream, as she was so often, in more ways than one. She sat up sharply, glancing around in annoyance at the luxurious bed with its hangings, the embroidered curtains hanging down on the french doors.

"Something wrong?" came a voice, sleepily, from her right. She distractedly shook her head and allowed her husband to drift off to sleep again.

She rose from her bed, sparing him a fond glance as she left. A part of her could not help but love Will Turner who was so good and so handsome and so hers, whatever else happened.

Her feet quickly moved across the cold wooden floor, and she knelt in front of the cradle that contained her sleeping daughter. Slowly her hand moved out to stroke her cheek admiring her firm skin, her silky brown hair. The girl, Joanna, was destined to look just like her mother.

But she had her father's eyes.

Elizabeth wondered what she had been thinking, months previously, when she told Jack she wasn't sorry.

She had lied. She was sorry.

God, she was sorry...


End file.
